L.A. TIMES / NEWS / LIFE & STYLE / STORY
Tuesday, February 18, 1997
CYBURBIA
A True Story of Family Lost and Found
By DAVID COLKER, Times Staff Writer
Emily, Blanche and Lebuse are not your typical CD-ROM
heroines.
They do not ride around in space ships, sing cute songs or solve
math puzzles. They are not from the land of make-believe.
These three sisters, originally from Prague, had their lives torn
apart by World War II. At the end of the fighting, two of
them--Emily and Blanche--began a decades-long quest to find
Lebuse, who disappeared in the wake of upheavals in Eastern
Europe.
It's a true story and an unlikely one to tell on CD-ROM, a genre
still most closely associated with games. But for Emily's grandson,
Robert Lenehan, the story was the perfect source material. Two years
ago in New York, with a borrowed computer, he began making the
CD-ROM, "Lebuse's Letters."
"It was my thesis project at the School of Visual Arts," said
Lenehan, speaking from his home in Bethesda, Md. "I wanted to
work out a new way of telling a story, and this is a story I knew
well."
When he was growing up, Emily lived with Lenehan's parents,
but he didn't know many details until after Emily died about 10
years ago. Then Lenehan discovered a packet of letters and other
documents his grandmother had saved.
The packet, tied by a blue satin ribbon, is the first image you see in
"Lebuse's Letters." "I wanted to re-create my experience of taking off
the ribbon and looking at these papers one by one, in no particular
order," Lenehan said. The interactive nature of CD-ROMs offered
him the chance to do that.
Lenehan divided the story into 12 segments, each linked to a key
document Emily had saved. After an opening sequence, the
CD-ROM presents a graphics-rich menu from which any one can be
chosen.
Each segment begins with a collage of images, including the key
document. You can start by reading that, and then click around the
screen to unearth other papers, audio sequences and short videos.
For example, one segment is anchored by a letter Emily wrote to a
government official during her search for Lebuse. There is a home
movie clip showing Emily and Blanche in America, plus photos
and audio re-creations of conversations.
The photos and videos are real. Some of the documents that were
originally in languages other than English have been translated, but
Lenehan tried to approximate their looks.
While the graphics are stunning, not all of "Lebuse's Letters"
works well. The worst are the badly acted audio segments.
But the story is so rich and the look of the piece so evocative that
this CD-ROM--produced for the extremely low figure of $1,000,
partly because Lenehan had access to school equipment--is far more
intriguing than most. Like an independent filmmaker, Lenehan has
produced a work that would not likely get backing from a major
distributor.
Indeed, he's distributing it himself. To order, call (301) 230-2745.
The cost is $39.95, and it works on both Macintosh and Windows
formats.
* Cyburbia's e-mail address is david.colker@latimes.com.
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